HOUSTON, March 18 (Reuters) - Top oil executives took to

the stage of a major energy conference on Monday to vocally

oppose calls for a quick move away from fossil fuels, saying

society would pay a steep cost to replace oil and gas.

Big oil companies including BP and Equinor ( EQNR ) have written down

renewable energy projects and others have been forced to push

back their greenhouse gas reduction targets due to greater

uncertainties with the transition to clean fuels.

That and unexpected strong demand for oil has stiffened the

industry's opposition to government and activist demands to

phase out fossil fuel development. Policymakers also have

shifted their focus to energy supply security and affordability

since Russia invaded Ukraine and during the latest conflict in

the Middle East.

"We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas,

and instead invest in them adequately" to reflect demand, Amin

Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil producer,

said to applause.

Despite the growth of electric vehicles, solar and wind

power, oil demand this year will reach a new record of 104

million barrels per day this year, Nasser said.

Alternative energy has yet to show it can displace

hydrocarbons at current requirements or prices, Nasser added. He

rejected the International Energy Agency forecast of peak oil

demand in 2030.

Other oil CEOs echoed his view, with Shell's Wael Sawan

pointing to government bureaucracy in Europe as slowing needed

development. Petrobras CEO Jean Paul Prates said caution should

overrule haste. Exxon Mobil ( XOM ) CEO Darren Woods also said

regulations governing clean fuels have still not been resolved.

"If we rush or if things go the wrong way, we'll have a

crisis that we will never forget," said Prates.

"You're hearing some very pragmatic views up here," said Meg

O'Neill, CEO of Woodside Energy ( WDS ), who rejected what she called

simplistic views that the transition to cleaner fuels can

"happen at an unrealistic pace."

Public debate over the transition and its cost has become

increasingly divisive in many countries.

"It has become emotional. And when things are emotional, it

becomes more difficult to have a pragmatic conversation,"

O'Neill said.

It could take 20 to 40 years to build the market for and

test some new clean-fuel technologies, O'Neill said.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm pushed back at oil

industry views on renewable fuels.

"That is one opinion," she said of Nasser's prediction of

continuing long-term demand for fossil fuels. "There have been

other studies that suggest the opposite that oil and gas demand

and fossil demand will peak by 2030."

She called the transition to clean fuels "an undeniable,

inevitable and necessary realignment of the world's energy

system." She added that the world will need fossil fuels well

into the future, and said technologies that remove carbon "are

ways that we can keep the lights on and continue to press for

clean energy solutions."

Exxon's Woods, whose company spent $4.9 billion on a carbon

sequestration company, raised concerns about building a business

around hydrogen and carbon capture and storage.

He said in remarks at the conference he is not confident

that carbon capture and storage will "necessarily come to the

right solution" because of its current high costs and lack of

market incentives.

On the use of hydrogen as a fuel, "the challenge has been

translating the legislation of the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act)

into regulation," Woods said.

"There isn't a lot of incentives" to drive low-carbon

hydrogen fuel projects, he said, referring to hydrogen derived

from natural-gas.